George Bush takes shot at Louisiana officials while praising California response to wildfires
“It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the Statehouse willing to take the lead.”
President George W. Bush
It's obvious the above statement made by Bush while with Arnold Schwarzenegger was directed at former Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco.
In a recent article, the New York Post compares the evacuation and emergency response to the fires in California this past week and the Hurricane that struck Louisiana Mississippi two years ago.
See the Post's A Firestorm, a Deluge and a Sharp Political Dig. Here are some of the highlights of the article.
* “I think you’re comparing a paper cut to an amputation,” said Sally Forman, the former press secretary to Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans and author of a new book, “Eye of the Storm: Inside City Hall During Katrina.” “We had no communication capability, we could not drive on our roads, we had 80 percent of our city under water, we had no power.”
* Mr. Bush’s remarks in California have clearly struck a nerve. Governor Blanco complained to The Times-Picayune of New Orleans that she had spent nearly a week as “the only game in town,” leading without the president’s help. Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and Louisiana native who has been active in that state’s recovery effort, and who has in the past praised Mr. Bush, could barely contain her outrage.
“This is a president who flew over the state while people were on their roofs,” Ms. Brazile said. “The president, of all people, should be very careful not to criticize and reopen that wound, a wound that was so deeply felt by the people of Louisiana.”
* “There’s a reason she’s former Governor Blanco,” said Mr. Wehner, the former Bush adviser, who is now a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. “It’s not an effort to shift blame, because the federal government made mistakes, too. But I think with the distance of time and history, the truth will emerge, and the truth is that it was a massive failure at the state and local level.”
I don't have much to say, other than this a tasteless quote, by a tasteless President, who runs a tasteless administration. There's really no reason for anyone to compare these two tragedies, but least of all the President of the United States.
Governor Blanco (and Mayor Nagin) were prepared to respond to a Category 5 -eventually Category 3- hurricane. Who on Earth knew that they would be responding to destruction caused by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers? Browny didn't.
